Dreams
by RodentFace
Summary: A few years after The Batttle of Hogwarts, Arthur Weasley has a strange dream where a mysterious voice tells him something he doesn't want to know about Harry and Ginny's relationship.


Author's Note: I have no idea when I wrote this, but it was probably about a year ago. And I'm just NOW getting around to publishing it. Anyway, enjoy.

Arthur Weasley had had a rather peaceful life since the war ended. He'd been the recipient of a rather large raise and his life (other than the fact that his middle child had been killed) was near perfect. He was not accustomed to strange dreams as so many who'd fought in the war had become, so one late May night, in the year 2002, he received quite a shock.

Usually an easy sleeper, Arthur fell asleep right away when he lay down for bed that night. But rather than dreaming of having more grandchildren than he remembered, being back in Hogwarts, becoming Minister of Magic (not that he actually wanted to be), or something of the sorts, he was simply sitting there in his kitchen which was oddly very empty; no people, no pictures, and nothing else other than himself, the table, his seat, and the sunlight pouring in from the windows.

However cheerful the weather may have seemed, there was a certain mood about the empty room; a mood commonly felt when receiving news from doctors or healers; a feeling that you are about to receive bad news, although there is no actual evidence to suggest this.

"_Arthur Weasley_," a voice whispered. No figures appeared and Arthur could not tell from where it had come. It seemed to have come from the very walls of the kitchen, but it seemed to have come from the center of the room and the ceiling as well. "_Arthur Weasley!_" Arthur could not help but think that he'd heard this voice before, but he could not pinpoint where; it was cold and high-pitched and made him think of a rather large icicle being scraped across a rock.

"Who's there?" Arthur asked. He was not afraid; he somehow knew that no matter how hard the owner of this mysterious voice tried, no matter how much it wished to, it could not hurt him and he could tell that this voice did very badly want to hurt him, though he did not know why.

"A messenger," the voice said silkily; it had had practice in charming people, "a speaker on your behalf. Tell me, do know of a Harry Potter?"

"Ah," Arthur said shrewdly. "You want to get to Harry, through me, do you?"

"No," the voice said. It knew that Arthur wouldn't give in that easily. "I merely come to warn you. He is not the man you think he is. There is much about him that you do not know. That he does not _want_ you to know."

"I see," Arthur was not bothered by this. Harry was an adult and had the right to make his own decisions and had the right to withhold information from others. The mysterious voice would have to try harder than that to make him distrust Harry. "Why does this matter to me?"

"Secrets concerning your daughter," the voice whispered, enjoying Arthur's reaction. Arthur sat up straighter immediately, but didn't want to appear too intrigued. He must not play into the voices hands…..if it had any. "Ah…..I have struck a nerve."

Arthur took a deep breath and considered his words carefully. "Secrets are not so uncommon. It shouldn't bother me."

"But it does," the voice said smoothly. "Yes…..Did you not know about them?"

"About Harry and Ginny?" Arthur asked. It was hardly a secret worthy of the Department of Mysteries. Harry and Ginny hadn't exactly avoided the topic of their relationship came up, nor were they able to avoid the press (though they had tried). From what Arthur could see, it was getting pretty serious. "Well, they've been dating since the war ended…..not really much to say."

"Yessssss….do you know anymore? For example, where are they now?" the voice was trying very hard to keep calm.

"Where are they now?" Arthur repeated confused. "Well, I imagine, as late as it is, that they're both at home, sleeping."

"Are you sure?" the voice asked, barely able to contain its emotion. "Are you positive?"

"Um, no. Harry could be on an Auror mission right now, though I don't think he is," Arthur took a moment trying to remember when Harry said his next mission was. "The Holly-Head Harpies are doing pretty well this season, so Ginny could be with her teammates, they go out a lot after practices, or perhaps the two of them went out tonight, but my best guess is that they're asleep right now."

"Yes and no," the voice said. Arthur couldn't imagine how it could keep suppressing its excitement for much longer. Sooner or later, it would be shouting. "They are, in fact, asleep right now and they did go out a few hours previously, but Ginny never went back to her apartment…..She and Harry both went to Grimmauld Place tonight…You can imagine what happened….." Arthur could almost see the owner of this voice smirking at Arthur's horror.

"You're not saying….They're not….." Arthur stuttered.

"Yes," the voice said, clearly proud at completing its mission. "Many times before."

Arthur swallowed. "Why did you tell me? Why would it matter to you?"

"Just imagine," the voice seemed to drift closer to him, almost as though whispering the words in his ear, "the poor boy who'd had bars on his window. The poor boy you and your wife had so happily taken in. The poor boy you treated as your own son. The one you had been so kind to. What he is doing now."

What the voice had intended with these words had had an opposite effect than what he'd meant by them on Arthur. While the voice meant only to anger him, he'd actually put Arthur's mind to ease. "I see your point," Arthur said, deciding to play this voice as it had tried to play him. "Yes, not only has my Ginny chosen a boy I approve of, she's also chosen the one I'd had picked out from the start. Harry's as good as our son. Why not just make it official?" He smiled as he imagined the voice's owner's eyes widening, realizing his mistake.

"Just imagine!" it said quickly and loudly, possibly trying to bring back its old charisma. "The poor boy who you'd thought of as your own son, playing with your daughter's emotions. Imagine, she loved him, but he didn't feel the same for her."

Arthur could have laughed at this. "You'll have to do better than that one! I know Harry better than that. He isn't capable of playing with someone's heart, for one thing, and anyone with eyes can see the way he looks at Ginny," Arthur said, telling himself this as well as the voice. He supposed that Harry and Ginny's relationship was not so different than his and Molly's were…..although, with less children. By the time that he and Molly were Harry and Ginny's age, they already had Bill and Charlie and he could see Harry and Ginny waiting, even after they were married. This thought brought on a whole new set of terrifying yet exciting possibilities: _Harry and Ginny getting married?_ It was more like Molly to think of such things, but Arthur couldn't help but hope. "Besides," he sighed, knowing that he must face the inevitable, "it was probably Ginny's idea to begin with." It was true. Harry was a Gryffindor through and through and Gryffindors where famous for being chivalrous.

He could almost see the face about to scream at him as the atmosphere of the room had changed greatly, but before either of them could say anything else, another voice, a woman's, shouted something. Arthur knew the voice, but could hardly allow himself to believe it was her. He had not spoken to her in over twenty years; and he had not had a proper conversation in even longer than that, but there was no mistaking that it was her. "Hey, James!" she shouted. "I found him! He's….oh, NO!"

Arthur hardly dared to say it, but he did, "Lily?"

He imagined her looking towards him. "Arthur? Is that you? Oh, no, what's he been telling you…..?"

"LET GO OF ME!" the mysterious voice shouted and he thought he heard a man shout, "Sirius, help me over here!"

There was the sound of a struggle and then the unmistakable sound of a fist colliding with someone's face. Arthur imagined James Potter standing up and wiping dirt off his pants. "Nice one," James said.

"Thank you," Lily Potter replied brightly. Arthur heard another person run over and this new person said, "Woah! Good thing you found him! Dumby's been going crazy-afraid of what he might do or say….What did you do to him?"

"Lily knocked him out," James said nonchalantly. "Apparently she can still punch hard enough to knock someone out."

"Really?" the new person said. "Wait, how did you know that she could once in the first place?"

"Fifth year, Halloween Feast? Apparently she got too annoyed that I was asking her out? Don't you remember, Padfoot?"

"Oh, yeah!" the new person, who Arthur now knew was Sirius Black, said. "Right, I get your asking-Lily-out-induced injuries mixed up."

"So what are we going to do with him?" Lily asked.

"Dumby will have something thought up by now," Sirius said. "What I want to know, is what he was doing here? Who do you think he was trying to contact? And what did he say?" he sounded worried.

"We could always ask Arthur who's been sitting there patiently this entire time," Lily suggested.

"Arthur?" Sirius asked. "Hi, Arthur!"

"Hi, Sirius," Arthur said weakly.

"Hi, Arthur!" James said.

"James, stop waving," Lily said, amused. "He can't see you, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, right," James sounded less chipper. "You think you can take care of him Padfoot?"

"Yeah, I'll manage," Sirius said and Arthur heard him walk off, dragging, what sounded like, a body, behind him.

"Um, what's going on?" Arthur asked. "Who was that? What….?"

"Arthur!" Lily said. "Calm down! Now, first off, that was Voldemort."

Arthur blinked. "Wha-what?"

"Yes, he disappeared. This room where we're standing, well, you can't see it, but it's where the dead go when they want to contact the living during their dreams. It's usually reserved for family members who have unattended will/final wishes issues to sort out or lovers who want to say their last goodbyes, but somehow, Voldemort got in here. When I saw him, well, I thought the worst. What I want to know however, is why he wanted to talk to _you_? What did he say?"

"He, um, just told me about, um, Ginny, and um, Harry," he said weakly.

"Wha-what?" James asked.

"Yeah," Arthur said. "If he knew, how come you didn't?"

"Well, I don't exactly spend _all _my time spying on my son. I spend quite a bit of time, but not all of it!" James said almost defensively.

"Are you two really that surprised?" Lily asked almost pityingly.

"You knew!" James asked her.

"Well, no, but I had my suspicions. They've been getting pretty serious…well, it won't be long before we're in-laws," she directed this towards Arthur but it was slightly hard to tell as neither of them could see each other.

Arthur had nothing to say to this. He had possibly hoped that it had just been a lie to make him resentful towards Harry, but Lily knew (or at least suspected) there really was no denying it.

"Well, you should probably wake up now," James said and it sounded as though he and Lily were walking away, even thought their voiced seemed to come from everywhere in the room. Arthur stayed asleep just long enough to hear James say, "You really need to tell me when had suspicions like that," and to hear Lily say, "I thought it was obvious."

Arthur really did not feel resentful. He simply couldn't. He knew that he probably should, but he liked Harry too much to. He simply was forced to remember that Harry and Ginny weren't children anymore…..though they hadn't been for a while.

The very next day, Harry and Ginny announced their engagement. Smugly, Arthur thought, _Take that, Voice!_


End file.
